Saturday, April 14, 2012

Maintaining the Perfect Balance

Arsenal is financially stable is a well known fact to the footballing
world, it probably is one of the very few sporting organizations to make
profits and upgrade itself in all aspects to next level, and yet be
stable competitively. And it is no co-incidence that during this period
of financial turbulence Arsenal has seen a major trophy drought, which,
is getting itchy to the fans and giving clubs without class reasons to
point fingers out at a club which oozes class in all aspects.

The slump and the drought which has become a part of Arsenal, and
hate to see us getting stereotyped with trophy-less seasons. But, this
drought has followed us since the move to Emirates stadium, which people
call Emirates-Jinx, lets analyze it sensibly.

Since the move to the new stadium, Arsenal had to cut down on a lot
of expenses, which included hefty wage players in the likes of Pires,
Vierra, Henry, etc.

A great manager moves on with the available
resources to make a team good enough to fight the battle with new stars
and new heroes, and this team falling for the greed of few in the likes
of Adebayor, Hleb, Gallas, Nasri, etc.

Facing challenges and betrayals (hate to say it, but, read: Cesc
Fabregas) and after a disastrous start to the season, we are, competing
for the second place (too optimistic), while clubs which have spent 100
times more than us (no exaggeration) have become a joke. (Read: ManC,
Liverpool and Chelsea)

Bounce after every fall [pic: www.skysports.com]

Looks like the time when Arsene Wenger's trust on his policies are returning favours, since later Feb, we have:

1. Covered 13 points from our North London's little successful club which forever remains in our shadows.
2. Dramatic comeback over Milan at home. A little more luck and we could have been on the path to Bacra revenge.
3. Won Eight, and Lost only one game on the bounce.
4. Late comebacks in most games in the period, which never looked possible in last couple of seasons at Arsenal.
5. Less reliant on the Captain's goals.

The future looks bright, but with only if Wenger manages to hold on to each of these following players: